WEBVTT Kind: captions; Language: en 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:19.000 [...] 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:33.000 [...] Panama Canal twenty two years ago first we go to the bottom of things find 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:37.001 ourselves sidetracked on the floor of the world famous Gaylord cut which perhaps 00:00:37.001 --> 00:00:42.000 is more familiar to you one of the name of Koolabra cut. Now we are traveling 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:45.000 along some of the one hundred and sixty miles of track that were laid down on the 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:49.000 bottom of the canal track that constantly had to be shifted as the 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:50.001 shovels dug away at Mother Earth. 00:00:51.001 --> 00:00:55.001 Right at this spot in the picture modern graced liners float on a watery bridge 00:00:55.001 --> 00:01:01.001 that rises forty five feet from where these rails are in the distance now the 00:01:01.001 --> 00:01:05.001 lines of tracks are to be seen and also one gets an idea of the width of the 00:01:05.001 --> 00:01:09.001 canal originally specified to be two hundred feet in width at the bottom. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.001 President Roosevelt TR that was ordered the dimensions changed to three hundred 00:01:14.001 --> 00:01:19.000 feet costing the United States an extra thirteen millions of dollars and well 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:24.000 worth it. Local and white labor were employed in the building of the canal the 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:28.001 white labor being called the gold standard native labor the rest. Here's one of 00:01:28.001 --> 00:01:32.000 the native signalmen the government kept one of these men flag in hand 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:33.001 at every switch and Koolabra cut. 00:01:34.001 --> 00:01:39.001 It had to for every minute and a half during the peak of activity in Koolabra a 00:01:39.001 --> 00:01:43.000 train loaded with dirt rumbled on its way to got tuned dam and locks. 00:01:43.001 --> 00:01:47.001 And despite that it was almost impossible to keep enough empty cars on hand to 00:01:47.001 --> 00:01:51.000 tax the capacity of the one hundred and one steam shovels used. 00:01:51.001 --> 00:01:55.001 We don't want to bore you with figures but in passing we might mention that the 00:01:55.001 --> 00:01:58.001 government used over three hundred locomotives and over four thousand 00:01:58.001 --> 00:02:00.001 cars of rolling stock in this work. 00:02:01.001 --> 00:02:06.000 Now we are approaching the most famous part of the Koolabra cut first a full view 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:10.000 of the car showing something of its death with the steam shovels biting away at 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:13.001 it and each chewing off as high as seven cubic yards of the bite. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:18.001 These particular shovels are working on a famous Kukaracha slide. Kukaracha in 00:02:18.001 --> 00:02:22.001 Spanish means cockroach and this slide was particularly annoying and disturbing. 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:27.001 It was a so-called wet slide caused by the rains and the slipping of soft wet 00:02:27.001 --> 00:02:29.000 dirt on a hard layer of rock underneath. 00:02:30.001 --> 00:02:34.001 The Kukaracha in October nineteen seven slid right across the bottom of the cut 00:02:34.001 --> 00:02:38.001 very two shovels and for ten days moved an average of fourteen 00:02:38.001 --> 00:02:40.000 feet every twenty four hours. 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:44.000 But that was just one of the many things that came up in the building of the 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.001 canal that were overcome with little fuss and purer and all the 00:02:47.001 --> 00:02:49.000 time the shovels kept nibbling away. 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:54.000 This is one of the locomotives used to haul the dirt train. 00:02:55.001 --> 00:02:59.001 In my dad's we wait for one of these many dirt trains each with twenty one loaded 00:02:59.001 --> 00:03:04.001 cars to pass that the canals experienced some twenty odd slides all told totaling 00:03:04.001 --> 00:03:08.000 twenty five million yards of earth and covering two hundred and twenty acres of 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:10.001 cut and destroying two hundred miles of track. 00:03:11.001 --> 00:03:14.000 Some of these slides came during the dry season and they 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:15.001 were caused by faults in the earth. 00:03:15.001 --> 00:03:19.000 Brakes occasion because of the removal of sidewalls and the cutting of the canal 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:23.000 in short there was nothing to keep the sidewalls from expanding into the 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:24.001 cut which they probably did. 00:03:25.001 --> 00:03:29.001 A few moments ago we said that the government used one hundred and one shovels. 00:03:29.001 --> 00:03:33.001 Some of them were left by the French who under the less ups builder of the Suez 00:03:33.001 --> 00:03:37.000 Canal first started work back in eighteen eighty two. 00:03:37.001 --> 00:03:41.001 These however are good old American shovels they are working here just past the 00:03:41.001 --> 00:03:44.001 sheer face of the labra at the lowest point of the cut. 00:03:44.001 --> 00:03:48.001 The very real bottom of the Panama Canal. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:55.001 The loading of the empty dirt trains is done very quickly those big dippers and 00:03:55.001 --> 00:03:58.001 don't worry the shovels always dig themselves out. 00:04:00.001 --> 00:04:06.000 These objects are some of the five hundred and fifty three rock drills that were 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.000 used for setting the dynamite shots. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:12.001 Six million pounds of explosives a year were used in the cutting of this gigantic 00:04:12.001 --> 00:04:15.000 ditch during its nine mile length. 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:19.001 That would make a real Chinese New Year's party wouldn't it in the distance now 00:04:19.001 --> 00:04:23.000 to be seen two famous spots on the left is Gold Hill 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:25.000 on the right contractors Hill. 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:29.001 To say that it was from the top of Gold Hill that Balboa first saw the Pacific 00:04:29.001 --> 00:04:33.001 Ocean but that was a long time ago and well you know how people will talk. 00:04:34.001 --> 00:04:38.000 At each end of that suspension bridge around nineteen hundred and ten and twelve 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:42.000 there were a couple of sizable little communities contactors camps they were. 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:45.000 But with the completion of the work they were demolished and 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:46.001 not a vestige remains of their presence. 00:04:47.001 --> 00:04:51.000 This looks like a desert stream in early spring but it's really the first water 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:53.000 ever to enter the Panama Canal proper finding 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:54.001 its way into it from the chagras river. 00:04:55.001 --> 00:04:59.001 The chagras basin is now filled by Gattun Lake formed by the man-made low-lying 00:04:59.001 --> 00:05:02.000 Gattun Dam at the Atlantic end of the canal. 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:07.000 And once again we view the face of Colabra cut showing how it looked back there 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:11.000 in nineteen twelve at its highest point they took thirty seven million cubic 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:15.000 yards of dirt out of Colabra and the cost well it's difficult to get actual 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.001 figures but the entire canal had an estimated cost of some three hundred 00:05:18.001 --> 00:05:20.000 and seventy five millions of dollars. 00:05:21.001 --> 00:05:25.000 Yes we know that all the steam shovels look alike just the same this one is 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:28.000 distinctive for this big brute was the shovel that dug its way through the entire 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:29.001 length of the canal from one end to the other. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:33.000 And while the shovels dig we'll turn to the place where all those 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:34.001 dirt trains were going Gattun. 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:38.001 We're standing on the top of the dam looking south toward Gattun Lake in the 00:05:38.001 --> 00:05:42.001 distance you saw the guide pier along which eastbound ships tie up before they 00:05:42.001 --> 00:05:46.001 are to enter the first of the three Gattun locks through which the ships are 00:05:46.001 --> 00:05:49.000 lowered eighty five feet to the level of the Atlantic. 00:05:50.001 --> 00:05:54.001 The camera swings in slow panorama and on the hill in the distance the 00:05:54.001 --> 00:05:58.001 administration buildings come into view within these buildings that all the 00:05:58.001 --> 00:06:02.000 orders were formulated for the building of the great Gattun Dam and locks. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:09.000 This bridge like structure is one of the two emergency locks should anything go 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:13.000 wrong with a regular lock gates one of these could be swung across the lock in 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:17.001 question and then it would drop big steel plates to form a supplementary gate. 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:24.000 And here is one of the pair of upper locks look at the size of it a thousand feet 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:29.001 long one hundred and ten feet wide and eighty three feet deep two million yards 00:06:29.001 --> 00:06:33.001 of concrete were using the Gattun end of the canal and the work took from 00:06:33.001 --> 00:06:35.000 nineteen six to nineteen eleven. 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:40.000 Now a clear view of all six locks is shown just a 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:42.000 few weeks prior to their completion. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:50.001 Here is the other emergency lock the regular lock gates can be closed in two 00:06:50.001 --> 00:06:55.001 minutes although they wait from four to seven hundred tons each. 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:04.000 And to give you a better idea of the size of these locks look at the small 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:06.000 figure of the man in the middle distance. 00:07:06.001 --> 00:07:11.000 There is the Panama Canal from the underside one of the greatest pieces of man 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:15.001 made construction ever known first talked of in eighteen twenty five when Henry 00:07:15.001 --> 00:07:20.000 Clay appointed a committee to look into the idea and through which the first ship 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.000 passed on August third nineteen fourteen and opened officially on 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:25.001 August fifteenth the same year. 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:28.001 The Panama Canal a monument to Colonel Gettles General 00:07:28.001 --> 00:07:30.001 Gorgas and the American people.